I Hear the Sirens in the Street

in the world.”
    “Martin wasn’t having an affair.”
    “Are you sure about that?”
    “Quite sure, he wasn’t the type.”
    “All women think that about their husbands right up to the moment when they receive undeniable proof and quite often after they receive undeniable proof.”
    “Even if he had been having an affair I wouldn’t have shot him.”
    “Why not?”
    “ I’m not the type, Inspector.”
    I felt a crick in my neck and I was getting a stress headache in this uncomfortable sofa. I got to my feet and stretched. “What is this place, anyway? Some kind of salt mine?” I asked.
    “That’s exactly what it is.”
    “Do you come down here often?”
    “I do. I read down here. It’s so quiet. No planes, no cars, nothing. Not even wind. They could have a nuclear war out there and I wouldn’t know about it.”
    “I was wondering how you power the lights.”
    “We steal electricity from the grid. Harry rigged it up.” She patted the generator. “This thing is only to pump out water.”
    “I suppose if I’m to buy into this theory of family poverty then I can only assume that the seams are worked out.”
    “They are. For all commercial purposes anyway. The mines incidentally are what got Sir Harry his ‘Sir’. His grandfather supplied salt for the Empire. It’s also why Harry couldn’t sell this land even if he wanted to. You can’t build on it.”
    I smiled and she looked at me strangely.
    “What are you thinking right now, Inspector?”
    “Right now?”
    “Right now.”
    “I’m thinking, Mrs McAlpine, that most people would be keeking their whips if they were being questioned about a murder for which they had no alibi and a possible motive. But not you. You’re as cool as a cucumber.”
    “Because I didn’t do it. I’ve nothing to be worried about. Why do you think I did it? Is it one of those policemen’s hunches I’m always hearing about?”
    “Hunches are overrated.”
    “How does one solve crimes, Inspector?”
    “Most criminals aren’t that bright. They screw up and we find the screw up pretty quickly and we can usually go to trial, except if the screw up involves eyewitness testimony.”
    “What happens if it’s eyewitness testimony?”
    “The eyewitnesses are intimidated into not testifying. Those cases usually collapse.”
    “And what about the hard cases? Like your body in the suitcase? That’s still your case, isn’t it? Or have you turned your attention to me and Inspector Dougherty now?”
    “No, that’s still my case. My only case. A colleague of mine is looking into the death of Inspector Dougherty, and your husband’s murder, I’m sorry to say, is probably never going to be solved.”
    “I see,” she said and pursed her lips.
    “Have you ever fired a pistol before, Mrs McAlpine?”
    “A pistol, no. A shotgun many times.”
    I looked at my watch. I had been at this for twenty minutes and I wasn’t really getting anywhere. If this was my case, maybe Crabbie and me would make more progress down the station in a windowless interview room. But it wasn’t my concern, was it? I looked at her for a beat or two. “Well, I suppose I must be going. Thank you for the tea,” I said.
    “That’s it, you’re not going to cuff me and drag me off?”
    “No.”
    “Why not? Do you believe me?”
    “I don’t know. But you’re tangential to my investigation. Chief Inspector McIlroy may want to interview you about Dougherty, but I’m done here.”
    “I’ll walk you out, if you like,” she said.
    I’d been hoping for some sign of relief from her – a blush or a sigh or anything, but grief had washed everything out of Mrs McAlpine already.
    I climbed the ladder and she followed me up. Out into sunlight. Or more exactly into the ambient light and rain. The horse whinnied excitedly when he saw Emma and she gave him a sugar lump.
    There were several dirty-looking gulls in the fields taking shelter from the wind.
    “Do you think those are fulmars?” I said absently.
    “Fulmars?”
    “Ful from the Norse meaning foul, mar meaning gull.”
    She grinned at me. “A man of many interests.”
    “Not really.”
    We walked the horse back across the bog to the farm. We didn’t speak because half a dozen Army Gazelle helicopters were flying south east, at a low ceiling, in a tight menacing formation.
    When the choppers had gone she asked me if I’d always wanted to be a policeman. I told her no. I’d been studying psychology at Queens.
    She told me that